DIY cantles?

[Bugbear]

Just between you and me... I had been plotting to make a pewter cantle with a smooth mirror finnish rather than the satin finnish, and just not tell anyone... I've lost intrest in cantles etc, though.

[Chas]

Just between you and me... I had been plotting to make a pewter cantle with a smooth mirror finnish rather than the satin finnish, and just not tell anyone... I've lost intrest in cantles etc, though.

Ted, weren't you considering making a ceramic one some time ago? How did you get on or not? Or am I just imagining this?

Regards

Chas

[Bugbear]

Ted, weren't you considering making a ceramic one some time ago? How did you get on or not? Or am I just imagining this?

Regards

Chas

I could still try that. I had been practicing making the design in clay. The choice would be either to burnish the cantle (still leather hard) and have a molde made of it, then have the metal cast made from that.

If I were to make the cantle from ceramic, I have to take into consideration how the glaze will behave on the design. It's basically a relief sculpture on a tile, so with the glaze thickness, some of the detail and sharpness would probably be lost. It can be adjusted to some degree, though.

Another option would be to make the design with the glaze or partly with the glaze. I have no way of doing that on my own.

I don't fire my own pieces, in fact, I make leather hard sculptures for other artists to finish. So it's almost as easy to have it cast in metal from a clay model.